Caroline Reid Writes

I've been away from Australia and neglecting this blog but I'm back in the saddle this month, writing from the comfort of the South Australian Writers Centre in the city of Adelaide, where I'm writer in residence until September. Thanks to some funding from Arts South Australia , I'll be more comfortable bcs I'll be less anxious about money for the duration of the residency. I'm also continuing to teach at Mockingbird Lounge , the casual monthly class (first Tuesday of the month from 7-9pm) and, beginning in September, I'm offering the short course in short story writing again, an excellent intensive for anyone who wants a crash course in how to write a story. The small group and supportive environment is well-suited for beginners or those dabbling in writing and want to gain some confidence or simply need a deadline so they can finish at least one story ! Here are the details: Specialising in Story: Short Story writing course Over six sessions writers ...

Specialising in Story: The teacher 'Caroline's guidance allowed me to discover depth and structure that I didn’t even realise was threaded throughout my work. She reads subtext, recognises quality and applies structured technique in order to allow the true meaning of the work to shine through.'  Here's the thing: On September 9th something new is happening in the Adelaide writing scene. For the first time, a small group of  writers are going to meet in one of the cosy rooms at the Mockingbird Lounge in South Glenelg. They're going to explore and play while upgrading their writing skills; connect with like-minded people while deepening their story-writing ability; and they're going to be encouraged by a teacher who invests in people. They're also going to explore the fundamentals of storytelling such as characterisation, point of view, dialogue and setting; how to harness Stanislavski's seven questions when a story doesn't seem to b...

We've all complained that we don't have enough time to write. And yet, when we do schedule a block of precious time, we manage to find plenty of other things to do, besides write. So much unstructured time! So many choices! We often don't know how to get started. Writing is scary. I'll review that - getting started at writing is scary. Once we're in the flow, fears get forgotten and focus is shifted to where is should be - on the poem, story or whatever it is we are writing. But how do you actually get started? If you live in Adelaide, I might have a solution. On the first Tuesday night of every month I run a writers group at Mockingbird Lounge . It's casual, low pressure, and you will spend most of your time writing.  When is it? The first Tuesday of every month, 7-9pm. Where is it? Mockingbird Lounge : 63a Broadway, Glenelg.                 Ph: 08 7007 2242 Who it for? Experienced or ...

--> Neil Gaiman reads 'A Christmas Carol' Hear ye, hear ye! I’m presenting a workshop at the South Australian Writers Centre on February 7th from 2-5pm, drawing on all that I’ve learnt about performance in the past 25 years (Lordy, has it been that long?!) From my acting days at the Hayman Theatre, Perth in the nineties all the way through to my being recent producer and mc of Spineless Wonders Presents at Adelaide’s Wheatsheaf Hotel, I’ve picked up some tricks that I’m going to share. I guarantee they will induce in you a state of euphoric calm, smooth the creases of your stage fright, have you raring to go and wowing your audience at your very first performance gig! Yeah? No. But I do know how nerve-wracking it is for many writers to have to read their own work aloud to an audience. We’re not all Neil Gaiman, right? (Though I suspect even he started somewhere in the land of nerves). A writer is used to using her mind but what the hell does she...

I attended an Arnold Zable workshop last year. Two things that remain with me from that workshop (I'm happy if I walk away from a workshop with two 'brain stickies'): Every story (short or long) has a hump that you need to push through so you can get to the end.   Sometimes you've already set up in the beginning of a story much more than you think. Sometimes you don't see it and that's when you need to retrace your steps, look carefully and follow up the leads or threads that you've already set up. In early 2011 I began a story (Working Title, 'The Wedding') in which a guy flew from Sydney to Darwin to be best man at his friend's wedding. I went back to this story several times over the next 18 months. What Arnold said I took to be true - I was having trouble finishing the story but I knew the leads were already in there somewhere. Then the Fiji retreat got cancelled. So I set myself some writing goals for the week which, I'm happ...

Pressfield: "The Muse always delivers" Disappointing news this week: the writers retreat in Fiji that I should be flying away to right now was postponed. Nothing like having to change international flights to give you a dose of bureaucratic reality. Aargh!  However, postponed is not cancelled and the retreat will give me something to aim for later in the year. Instead of flying to Fiji I spent the day working on a story 'The Caretaker'. I took the first half of this story to my writers group and they wanted to read more. That got me excited. (Golden Rule - Keep Them Reading). So I keep plugging away at 'The Caretaker' and it continues to grow. Definitely one that will end up in the collection, Satisfied. In the meantime, I miraculously finished a first draft of a new story, 'Crocodile' over 2days. I'm not exaggerating when I say miraculously - I've never worked that quickly before. I put it down to continuously turning up to the blank ...